Borana Elder Arrested and Charged with “Resisting NRT”

In a startling and unprecedented move, an elder of the Borana Peoples from Isiolo Kenya, has been arrested and is on trial for ‘resisting’ Ian Craig and the Northern Rangelands Trust – NRT. How is this even possible in 2018? That a person or persons can be arrested for simply standing up for the rights of their community? He has not thrown a bomb or stood on a road and blocked the President of this country from passing through his lands. What he has done is stated adamantly, a truth – that NRT is a wily sneaky antagonist that seeks to steal and grab by crooked hook and treachery, the ever flowing springs and oasis of this community and the pasture land that surrounds it.

It is intolerable that NRT and Ian Craig can even begin to seem to have this much power – let us be honest here. It is irresponsible and reeks of imperialism and colonialism, not to mention racist, for Sir Ian Craig as a white member of the British peerage – to take any single indigenous person to Kenyan court for resisting his plans.

Is he our leader? No. He is not. Neither are we as indigenous tribes of Kenya beholden to Britain or the UK in any form – Kenya is a democratic country. We Kenyans, unlike Sir Ian Craig, are not beholden to the Isle Queen, neither have we made vows to be servile, or bow down to her. While her subjects in the UK may think her Royalty is a Goddess, we Africans have our own cultures and the indelible right to choose how and where within our borders and lands we will live.

This counterfeit arrest and subsequent court case in a perverse manner proves what this page and others have been shouting – that Ian Craig and NRT deliberately set brother against brother and tribeman against tribeswoman – it is NRT who provoke and calculatingly cause strife and war against our peaceful Northern tribes. Each time there is news that there are ‘bandits’ or ‘killings’ or ‘pastoralists have raided’ – it is always first in FOREIGN news and in a ‘bandits’ against ‘white savior’ perspective.

For how long shall we be seen as bandits – but this is another story…For now, know that always if you snoop and sniff hard enough, you will find that these volatile land issues in the north are because of interference by NRT and Ian Craig – a Trust that is backed by, and given Billions of

Dollars through (each), the British public, the American public, USAID, WWF, WWF Kenya, TuskTrust, DANIDA, Government of Sweden, TNC, and African Parks (SA) among others. You reading this have probably dished out a few dollars to ‘save a Rhino’ or ‘Save a baby Elephant’ to one of the many Trusts ‘conservancies’. Why are all these BILLION DOLLAR conglomerates fighting a single old man? It is cruel to fight a man over his own land use.

Yet it is also time the world learned the truth of Ian Craig, of white “settlers” in Kenya, of the cruel corruption, intimidation and duplicitous terror imposed on communities through arbitrary, uninformed and illogical decisions – made by the British Royal family, by non-indigenous farmers and foreign-owned and funded conservation NGO’s.

“Mzee Alio Matamolu has been arrested and implicated in a case where Northern Rangelands Trust/NRT via Chief Abdi Jatani, is accusing him for “resisting” the illegitimate activities of Ian Craig in the Charri Range lands. Let us stand by Mzee Matmolu for we all must resist NRT. We must hold our leaders accountable and come clean on the under-hand dealings that are associated with Ian Craig. Our Hero Mzee Matmolu is being intimidated and threatened for asking about the purported MoU that was signed between Ian Craig/NRT and our community and he fears for his life. Mzee wanted to know the contents of the MoU since the 10 year inception of the Biliqo Bulessa ConServation for the community has suffered many calamities. These disasters that have prevailed on this community include

Insecurity where 63 innocent lives were lost due to conflicts orchestrated

by #NRT, they suffered –

Displacement and, arbitrary

Restrictions of movement by herders, and

Livestock access to both

Pasture and

Water,

Lack of community public participation in the economic investments within

the rangelands as indigenous owners of the wildlife and ancestral range

lands, the community suffered:-

Total exclusion from the conservation of wildlife,

Undermining the Indigenous knowledge of the range management which is called the Deedha system. Mzee Matmolu was saying NO to the illegal hunting of wildlife and birds through shooting dead by exclusively rich white foreigners that come from Britain and America through Ian Craig of Lewa Downs. The Community of Biliqo Bulessa is appealing for solidarity with Mzee Matmolu.”